Leader of MS-13 affiliate gets 32 years in prison

Charges include conspiracy to participate in racketeering enterprise

A man considered the leader and de facto treasurer of a local clique of the MS-13 gang was sentenced Monday in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt to 32 years in prison for conspiracy to participate in a racketeering enterprise.

Santos Maximo Garcia, 32, also known as "Curley," was convicted in a March 2008 trial for operating an MS-13 enterprise from at least 2001 to 2007 in Prince George's and Montgomery counties that included eight murders in Maryland and one in Virginia.

Charges included the use of deadly weapons such as firearms, baseball bats, machetes, bottles or knives in the commission of numerous murders, attempted murders and assaults. He also is charged with assaults on an MS-13 gang member from El Salvador, juvenile females and rival gang members, as well as obstruction of justice and witness tampering, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maryland.

Garcia was the leader of the local MS-13 clique Sailors Locos Salvatruchos Westside in Prince George's County, where he also collected and distributed dues to MS-13 members as the de facto treasurer. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office said she did not have a fixed address for Garcia.

Garcia's co-defendant, Israel Ramos "Taylor" or "Sastre" Cruz, 31, of Wheaton, was sentenced to life in prison in June after being convicted at the same trial for racketeering conspiracy; conspiracy to commit murder in aid of racketeering; murder in aid of racketeering; witness tampering murder; using a firearm in relation to a crime of violence; murder resulting from use of a gun; assault with a dangerous weapon in aid of racketeering; being an undocumented immigrant in possession of a gun and ammunition; and use of a gun during a crime of violence, according to the press release.

In 2002, Garcia and a fellow MS-13 gang member assaulted Garcia's ex-girlfriend and her friend in Silver Spring by beating the vehicle she was in with a baseball bat and firing a gun repeatedly as she drove off. Neither victim was injured by gun fire.

In 2004, Cruz and Garcia falsely testified they were not MS-13 gang members before a state grand jury in Prince George's County investigating the May 2004 murder of an MS-13 gang member.

From June 2002 to August 2005, Cruz and Garcia attended numerous meetings of MS-13, where they discussed how to thwart law enforcement efforts and possible retaliation against police, according to the press release.